Black-Holes and Sympathy
by KShade
Summary: The final battle between Zoey and Neferet. Neferet just wanted the power to protect herself. Zoey only wanted a normal happy life. Instead the two are like blackholes, sucking away all the things the other holds dear. Shaylin learns that it's not just about Light and Darkness when she tries something new with her Trues Sight. Warnings: violence, flashbacks to Neferet's Curse. Tplus


**Do any of you follow Kristen Cast on Twitter? I just got Twitter today, and there's a contest… any ways, my other entry, since I'm by no means an artist. This is dedicated to the amazing authors of the House of Night series. Because characters, stories like these ones stay with people a whole lifetime. **

_**And… I own nothing but the ideas I put into these.**_

Black holes and sympathy:

_Neferet_

All she wanted was power. She'd started out trying to have the power to ensure than never again would she be subjugated to anyone, mortal or otherwise. If that meant people had to die, well, that was just a small flaw in the plan. It had been one hundred twenty years since it all began, and now she was a _force._ She was immortal, the queen of the Tsi Sgili, the consort of the White Bull. The part of her that had once been a High Priestess cringed away from the idea, but Neferet didn't care. Light had never been there for her like Darkness had. Darkness was really what had saved her, not Nyx, not the change she'd made. She had certainly changed. Now she would never again be a victim.

Then, Zoey Redbird had to happen. She had such a charmed life. She had a mother figure, more people willing to love her than she could handle, supportive friends willing to constantly accept all of her _incessant _lying. But most of all, Zoey Redbird had Nyx. Nyx always seemed to be blessing her, or saving her, or guiding her. Neferet had no one when she was a fledgling. No family, not after the betrayal she'd suffered at the hands of her father. After Arthur's smaller betrayal, she'd had no love, and not trusted the others enough to have friends. Nyx had done nothing for her, and here she was, wasting blessing after blessing on an incompetent chosen one.

Even the people in Neferet's life gravitated to her. Loren and Kalona both had chosen Zoey over Neferet. Only Darkness remembered to whom its loyalties were forged. Zoey had taken her army, taken her lovers, her position as High Priestess, even cast her from her own house, but she would not let the child take her life. Neferet was not going to let some child who knew nothing of suffering to end her reign. She was a Tsi Sgili queen, and she would never let Nyx's little black-hole of a prodigy suck that away from her too.

_Zoey_

All Zoey wanted was to be normal. She wanted a nice, happy life, and good friends, and a boyfriend who loved her, and what did she get? Madness. She got a crazy ex-High Priestess who wanted her dead, a fallen angel who she'd trapped in a past life, and a funeral to go to practically every week. Every death was someone closer and closer to her, and she just wanted it to stop! She was determined; Erin was the last friend she would bury. She didn't care what she would have to do; it was as Stevie Rae would say "time to cowboy up."

Neferet just had to complicate everything, didn't she? Zoey was so done with her bullpoopie. She created an undead army, screwed with Zoey's memory, sent Loren literally just to screw Zoey up more, tried to _kill_ Stevie Rae, enslaved the House of Night, then tried to kill her circle, and defame them. She really did end up killing Heath, and for a moment, Zoey had lost Stark, she'd nearly lost herself when she was shattered. Then, Neferet had kept going, Jack, her mom, Dragon, now Erin. Zoey was done with the murder. She was done being 'just a teenage girl' and trying to stay as the poster-child for good intentions. By this point, the end justified the means. She knew Shaylin was questioning her for the mirror, hell, she should question her! Zoey was sure that wasn't who she was, torturing her enemy to win the fight. But it did what she'd needed it to. She'd saved her grandma, and showed Neferet that they wouldn't back down.

She chose to ignore that she still wasn't comfortable with killing someone. She would have to, just to make sure that next time it wasn't Stark who lost his life, or Stevie Rae, or Shaunee or Damien. Yes, though it was a paradox, to stop the murder, there had to be one more death. She didn't think the others would want her to… to have to be the one to do it, but that was what she was chosen for. She was the one holding the mirror, she was the one who saved Stevie Rae, it was only fitting that it came down to Zoey and Neferet, Light and Darkness. She wouldn't bring the circle. They would be in danger if she tried. She _was _a circle, she had all the elements. It was time for Light to triumph.

She scrawled out a note to her friends, going to where _something_ just told her Neferet would be. Zoey just hoped that she was strong enough to stop the black-hole Tsi Sgili, who seemed to be sucking everyone either into her little plan, or out of this world before their time.

_Shaylin _

All Shaylin really wanted was her sight, and she had that. She was sketching, trying to recreate things she'd seen on paper, and enjoying it despite the fact that she was new to it. Then, she saw Zoey leaving the tunnels. Her aura had a certain… finality to it. Zoey had resolved to do something. There were little orange-y flickers of anxiety flashed in her aura as well. She was nervous. She was resolute. Shaylin had a bad feeling she knew what that meant. Everything she saw, anger, hurt, determination, nerves, they pointed to one thing… Neferet. Shaylin searched frantically for her cell phone, to contact the rest of the circle, but it wasn't there. She sighed, knowing what she had to do. She followed the older fledgling, asking Water to cloak her.

Zoey swore she felt Water behind her, but rather than thinking of Shaylin, she was reminded of Erin. Erin lost her life to Neferet at the job fair, and she wouldn't stand for it. She would make sure Erin was the last one. Even if it meant she would die trying. She wondered if the elements could bring a person back, but dismissed the idea. She wasn't Buffy Summers, she was pretty sure she'd never have the chance to tell people she'd died twice.

Shaylin watched as Zoey crossed the street, walking briskly to the park. Then, she noticed Neferet. Neferet looked… well, immortal. She walked like she was floating, like every step she placed on the ground was a compliment to the ground. She was clothed in Darkness, the tendrils tangible and untangible, like a writhing nest of snakes, but forged from mist. Her auburn hair billowed out behind her, though really, the way the breeze was going, it ought to be whipping it in her face. Shaylin had to focus, using all her power to see Neferet's aura. It was still fish-eye white, but it seemed harder, more like it chose to be that way.

Shaylin pushed harder with her True Sight, something was telling her that wasn't all there was to the story. She saw red slashes in the white, until the aura began to obscure her sight entirely. Fish-eye white, with red slashes that oozed red and black, the black having a purple tinge, like some sort of toxic chemical. She tried to force the colours away, to see what was going on. Then, the red began to glow, and the white began to peel away.

Shaylin watched, partially in awe, partially in horror as things unfolded. Around her vision, colours fizzed and popped, bright as fireworks, but she was captivated with what went on in the center of her vision. She saw a girl there, one a little older than her—maybe a couple months, if she was lucky. She had long auburn hair and green eyes, all things she recognised, of course, from their present day Neferet. What she didn't recognise was the girl's aura.

Neferet had been an innocent girl, in love and naïve, but stricken by something. That explained the almost bruise-like markings on her colours. Shaylin watched, captivated as Neferet's story unfolded. She was at some festival with her father (who she had yet to see much of, not enough to get a look at his aura) and his coworkers. She was going to marry a handsome guy who seemed just a little too self-involved for Shaylin's liking. Shaylin thought Neferet had a great life.

Then, the memory skipped to something she could never forget. Shaylin saw the younger Neferet trying to sleep, coughing and hacking just as Shaylin had before she was Marked. _Did the tracker hurt her? _wondered Shaylin. Then, the door opened. Neferet didn't notice until he was above her, "Mary?" she asked.

That's when Shaylin saw his colours. She had never seen anything quite like this. He was full of violent intentions, twisted possessiveness, and he had no conscience, no morals to govern him. Neferet's dad, mortal though Shaylin was sure he was, was far more evil than Neferet was, even now. "Awake, are you?" he asked, something stirring in his eyes, "good. You need to be. We have something to settle between us."

Neferet tried to plead with him, fear growing in her aura. She told him she was sick, she needed help. He never listened. He told her that the staff was not there to hear her. When she tried to slip out, he'd shoved her brutally back to the bed, intentions clear in his eyes. Finally, Neferet stood up for herself, but it served only to anger him further. Then, Shaylin realized exactly what she was planning when he called her a whore, admonishing her for tempting him. _Oh goddess! _ Shaylin thought, _please no!_

Shaylin closed her eyes, tears already streaming from them. She could still hear it, every demeaning remark, every time he struck her, her every cry for help. Shaylin could hear far too much. She clapped her hands over her ears, and quickly opened her eyes to check if it was over. It wasn't over—not by a long shot. Neferet was sobbing, her dress and necklace in ruin. Shaylin couldn't see quite what her father was doing, but she knew all the same. Neferet's colours were ripping, tearing. They were bleeding. It was eerily like what she'd seen before.

The memory skipped forwards a week, to when Neferet returned, already a fledgling. Her father asked her if she'd come back to him, and her voice was hard as diamonds when she told him she'd come back _for _him. Shaylin watched in a state between awe and horror as she wrapped the same strand of pearls Shaylin had seen scattered around Neferet as his noose. He fought her, but she was strong. His hands battered her, bruising her but doing nothing to halt the utter lethality that was Neferet. He began to turn purple. She egged him on, telling him that all the bruises he left were creating an excuse for her. His eyes began to bulge as he gasped for air.

Shaylin felt no sympathy for the dying man, only for Neferet, who would never be the same. She was a sixteen year old who had killed her father. _A sixteen year old who was finally free of him, _her mind added conspiratorially. As she was sure he was dying, Neferet looked her father in the eyes and said "And I am not Emily. I am Neferet."

When he died, Neferet unwrapped the necklace from his neck, noting the indents it had left, the way the pearls were covered in his blood. Shaylin knew nothing about Darkness and it's system for sacrifices, but she was sure this was one. Neferet had sacrificed her oppressor that she may be free in this life. And, sidebar: apparently, she had been named Emily. Shaylin supposed she would just keep that little fact to herself. As Neferet left, she just stood there, trying to determine whether she could—would be condone murder. For this man, she decided that what Neferet had done had probably saved some other poor, defenseless victim.

Then, there was a flash, and she was thrust into a new memory. Around four years later, Neferet was a vampyre. Her new colours were already whitish, but there was a hint of humanity left in her. The slashes were now scabbed over, the painful red darker, the colour of dried blood. She was being sent to her new House of Night. The High Priestess explained to her what it was to be a priestess, to dedicate her life to Nyx.

Shaylin watched as tendrils crept up Neferet's arm, the High Priestess not even seeing them. They marked her just as surely as Nyx had, and as she stroked them affectionately, it was clear where her loyalties were. As she left the House of Night, finding even more tendrils waiting for her, it became clear to Shaylin that the Darkness was all she had. All she would ever trust enough.

The next memory was that fateful day, where they'd gone to save Grandma. At the time, she had been in the elevator, so she had only seen a quick glimpse of colours. Now she had a front-row seat. Zoey desperately cried out the spell, desperate to save her friends and grandmother. The mirror appeared. Neferet looked into it and froze. Shaylin couldn't look at it. She knew what Neferet was seeing, from the moment the tears started. The moment Neferet began to fight unseen hands, her fingertips bleeding from clawing at each other, Shaylin knew. She caught Zoey sneaking a peek in the mirror.

_How could she do this!? _Shaylin wondered, watching the scars rip open again, _how could Zoey do this?_ This wasn't a fight of good and evil, this was two greys in between doing battle. Light didn't torture their enemies, Darkness didn't have feelings like the evidently traumatised Neferet. That's when she regained consciousness entirely. Zoey and Neferet were still on opposite ends of the park, but they were converging towards the centre, walking slowly, both still determined.

Shaylin focused on Zoey this time. Looking at her colours, she looked for what had made her friend willing to fall so far to stop the Tsi Sgili. Feeling dizzy from overuse of her powers, she entered Zoey's mind. There she followed Zoey through all the deaths and all the close calls that had happened since Zoey became a fledgling.

Feeling weak, Shaylin watched as the two enemies faced off, Zoey about to call on the mirror. The two were like black-holes; they sucked everything out of each other's lives. Really, it was a Harry/Voldemort situation: neither could live while the other survived. On one hand, Shaylin had seen the worst of both of them, but she'd also seen their worst moments, the moments that shaped them. She didn't know in that moment who she wanted to win. She was caught between a battle of black-holes and her own growing sympathy.

So, she just watched, willing them to both live, wishing she could go into both lives and take out the hurt. Take away Heath's death and Neferet's father. Take out all the bloodshed, all the strife and the animosity. She didn't have that kind of power. She hoped she never would, because that would mean being able to manipulate free will.

Zoey summoned the mirror, fusing it with the five elements just as Neferet summoned Darkness, launching everything she had at Zoey. There was a bang and a flash of light, and before Shaylin fainted from overusing her powers getting the best of her, she saw a single figure emerge from the smoke.

**So, I honestly don't know how this became the epically long thing that it is. This was supposed to be just the first two POVs and then a short Shaylin ending. None of the memory stuff was originally planned. It just seemed to work, so I didn't question it at the time, I just wrote. And this is also dedicated to Lady Tsunamix, because of her review on Volta! You are an amazing human being!**


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